Are you planning to travel to China? Are you looking for a new live or just an adventure? Well, you might know that China is not the easiest destination. China is getting every year more and more global, but – at the same time – it is still very attached to its traditions. Communicating, although you speak Chinese, is not always easy, especially for cultural reasons.
We want to list the best apps to make your visit to China easier.

VPN

Most of the Western common websites are not accessible from China, due to government restrictions. But don’t be afraid: the solution is to install a VPN on your smartphone or in your laptop before going to China. There are free and paid options: check online the one which suits to you!

WeChat

Chinese people are always at the phone. The reason? They have a great and user friendly app: WeChat. This app works both as a messenger and a social network. It allows to send texts and vocal messages, customized stickers, video calls and money transfer (from this spring it allows also international money transfer). You can share your “moments” (posts, pictures, video, links) with your friends and find new friends with the options “people nearby” and “drift bottle”.

WeChat connects to official WeChat pages and personal profiles via QR code: that’s the reason why you will see many billboards and ads with a big QR code. In fact, WeChat is also used for marketing purpose: to get more visibility, many brands and companies promote their QR code and send info and incentives to their WeChat fans.

WeChat developers are always updating the app, so it performs extraordinarily well.

Pleco

Pleco is one of the best Chinese-English dictionaries. It works offline and can be used as a reliable tool to communicate with only-Chinese speaking people. It comes with features such as handwriting recognition (you can draw characters you don’t know) and voice recognition (you can get people to speak into it when you don’t understand what they’re saying). Don’t forget to set the pinyin and handwriting keyboards on your phone, so you can use all the features Pleco offers. Pleco is very useful tool also for learning Chinese.

Maps

To travel in China you’ll definitely need a map: Chinese cities are huge and provide efficient public transports. There are loads of app maps and most of them don’t need internet coverage. You can put in your beginning and end station and the app will plan the quickest route for you. They also tell you the costs and how long the journey takes. Maps of stations are included along with information about facilities close to each station including food, shopping and entertainment.

Check these apps out, they are for free!

– Mx data
– Metroman
– Ulmon
– Citymaps

Air Quality China

More and more city residents across the country realized air pollution has become a serious threat to their health. The sky is rarely clear blue, and many people wear pollution masks while communing. Air Quality China is a free Mobile application to check real time Air Quality Index (AQI) values of all major cities in China. It also comes with an app widget which is updated automatically for every 30 minutes.

Well, if you have downloaded these basic apps, you will be serenely able to travel to China.